Surviving, thriving in exile: Q&A with Dina Yafasova

In September 2001, CPJ received a worrisome call. Uzbek journalist Dina Yafasova had
been roughly interrogated by the Uzbek
National Security Service, which threatened her with imminent arrest and physical abuse unless
she revealed sources and names of articles she wrote for international
publications. She left the agency deeply shaken and within days had left the
country for Denmark, where she sought asylum.

Yafasova,
a journalist since 1988, had worked as a Central Asian correspondent for Danish and other
international media. Her investigative reports (one of which, on state
censorship, formed part of a submission to an official hearing before the U.S.
Congress in 2001) portrayed the difficulties of daily life in a post-Soviet
dictatorship.

CPJ has stayed
in contact with Yafasova since she left Uzbekistan nearly 10 years ago and has followed
her difficult transition from living alone in a refugee camp, through her struggles
to find housing and work, to her newfound success as a published author in
Denmark, where she has now brought her family as well.

EW: You arrived in Denmark after a difficult
journey. You had a visa due to your prior work with a Danish publication, and you
applied for asylum. What was your experience like in your first year?

DY: At the start of my exile, I found myself in a Danish refugee camp, a
place not so different from an open-type prison. Of course nobody expects
five-star hotel treatment at such camps, but I was definitely shocked by what I
found: small, overcrowded rooms in a series of barracks surrounded by barbed
wire, where traumatized people from all over the world sat and waited in group
isolation, their mental scars left to fester untreated. By the irony of
destiny, my first morning in the camp was September 11, 2001, the day
xenophobia exploded and attitudes toward refugees shifted. Some of the establishment
forces in Denmark abused the tragedy in the United States and bound the words
"refugee" and "terrorist" together. It was a rare opportunity for me as a
journalist, but I also had to deal with it as a human being. The hardest thing
was fear for the safety of my family who remained in my home country after I
had to flee. They were left almost in a position of being held hostage -
authorities could go after them at any time. The second hardest thing was the
feeling of not knowing. I didn't know when I'd see my children and my husband, or
if I'd ever see them again.

EW: How long were you separated from your
husband and children?

DY: I remained in a refugee camp for six months, but under those
circumstances it felt like six years. My separation from my children and husband
continued for six months. Actually, people stay in such places for
years. I have to thank CPJ, which started an international campaign advocating for
my case; it helped make my time in the camp and my separation from my children
and husband shorter.

EW: What were some of the challenges you faced
once you were granted asylum?

DY: Living in exile is a big challenge, but the hardest thing was to deal
with the dilemma that my work brought me into. I wanted to keep my journalistic
identity, but at the same time I had to think about the safety of my family and
friends who remained in my home country. For example, during the first year of
my exile I worked for a well-known Danish organization, International Media
Support, where I was responsible for media development projects in former Soviet
countries, including Uzbekistan, and I was obliged to do this work for the most
part anonymously. I chose not to step forward publicly in order not to bring
friends and relatives in my homeland in danger.

EW: You have since published two books. Was it
difficult to start your career over in a new country?

DY: Of course it was not easy. When I left the
refugee camp, I had only three things with me, three things to start a life in
a new country. The first was the blanket I had used in the camp. The second
were my diaries with my notes about the things I had experienced in the camp.
The third was my new status, a citizen of the world. I was lucky, as I received
so much support, sometimes even from people I didn't know. I still feel that it
is unrealistic to do qualified journalistic work in a country whose language
you started learning in your 30s. But exile also influenced my way of
writing. From mobile, all-knowing but
laconic journalism, I shifted to a more lonely way of writing. In the beginning
of my exile, I was encouraged by the largest Scandinavian publishing house,
Gyldendal, to write a book of documentary prose about my experiences in my home
country and the refugee camp. Against all expectations, The Darkest Hour is Before the Dawn (titled Sandholm Diary in Danish) was critically acclaimed and raised a national
debate about the prison-like conditions under which refugees were forced to live
as they waited for their futures to be sealed. After some years, I'm proud to
say that the book was able to make a little bit of a difference. Danish
newspapers wrote recently that the waiting time in Danish refugee camps was
shortened by three times, as the finally government understood that long stays
in such camps damage the psychological health of the refugees. My second book,
the documentary novel Don't Call Me a
Victim!, which was published in Denmark in May, is a political and human
drama about torture in police custody as an instrument of a war against
terrorism, and terrorism as an instrument and reaction to the terror of the
state.

EW: Were there repercussions for your other
family members in Uzbekistan after your departure?

DY: There were repercussions against my parents; this resulted in them
also having to flee.

EW: What advice do you have for journalists
going into exile? And for organizations and people who want to help?

DY: When I was forced into exile, and for a long time
afterward, I felt very guilty about
my family, because my journalistic work destroyed their safety and our home. But
I also remembered what my husband said to me when I had to leave the country: "The
world is always cruel to journalists who report the truth. Prison or exile are
the biggest compliments a journalist can receive for his or her work. But exile
is better than a prison." What I can add to this? If you are not left alone in
your exile, if you are lucky enough to get some help from the people around you
and international community, there is always a chance that you can rebuild your
professional identity, and then you will be able to do your work in, perhaps, an
even more qualified way. As Brodsky said: "From tyranny one can only exile to
democracy."

As for organizations
and people who want to help, I can only ask not to leave our colleagues and
their families alone. There is nothing worse than forgotten victims.

W: How do you feel about your situation now?

DY: I still receive threats even though I'm in
exile. The last threats came on October 7 last year, the day on which Anna
Politkovskaya was murdered. The Danish police are investigating it.

Elisabeth Witchel, a CPJ consultant, served for many years as the organization’s journalist assistance coordinator. She also launched CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity.